DESERT: This small town needs a big town – but it’s happy to keep its distance.

By Mike Trask

LAS VEGAS SUN

BAKER – This dusty little town, 92 brutal highway miles from Las Vegas, exists for only one reason. It’s the last stop on Interstate 15 before the Nevada line – and all the vice that lies ahead.

It’s famous for being the “Gateway to Death Valley,” having the world’s tallest thermometer and not much else.

As Las Vegas’ size has exploded, the 595 people who live in the 4<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>2-square-mile town have noticed relatively few changes in their everyday lives.

Baker remains, as it has always been, reliant on the travelers crossing the desert in need of gas, food or vehicle assistance.

On Fridays and Sundays the traffic can be seen for miles, crawling down the steep hills in the sweltering heat, much of it headed toward Las Vegas or Southern California.

There isn’t a gas station within 50 miles of Baker – making the city a welcome sight indeed for motorists with pressing needs of both car and body.

“We are totally dependent on the highway,” says Le Hayes, manager of the community services district, the local government body with a $600,000 annual budget to pay for basic services. “A huge percent is Las Vegas. All we have to do is look.”

Look and you’ll also see the vehicles parked on the shoulder of I-15, overheated, with flat tires or otherwise immobilized.

For this reason, Paul Mitchell, a burly 29-year-old with a thick beard and glasses, has one of the best gigs in town. He is one of the drivers for Ken’s Towing, a longtime Baker business specializing in aiding stranded motorists.

Mitchell earns $9 an hour,

50 percent of labor costs and

33 percent of the $130-per-hour towing cost, which makes for some good paydays.

Often, Mitchell is the only Baker resident travelers meet on their way elsewhere.

Unless they stop and look around, they never see the dismal living conditions. Many residents are packed into trailers that have seen better days. Eighty-five percent work in the service industry.

“It’s a nice little place,” Mitchell said. “There’s no fancy places.”

Mitchell has a life that Vegas folks would either envy or fear. The big-city bustle has not touched him, except in his paycheck and maybe his wife’s job shilling dark roast. And he greets Las Vegas with a suspicious eye, unless he needs to do some shopping or wants to see a film. Then he heads into the city.

“You think about going to Vegas, then you hear about all the crazy stuff, people killing each other,” he said. “We don’t have that here.”

Mitchell lives in a 22-foot camper with a busted window that he shares with his wife and three young children. Although there are negatives about the cramped quarters – there is not enough room, for instance, for a large TV – Mitchell will tell you there also are some big positives.

There’s not much maintenance, he’s close to work – an advantage of living in your workplace’s parking lot – and $200-a-month rent for the spot isn’t much considering a one-bedroom in Las Vegas would cost quadruple that or more. Plus, his yard is the Mojave Desert.

Over the years, he’s towed Escalades, Mercedes-Benzes, even a Rolls-Royce.

“Those are the ones that want to complain about the price,” Mitchell said. “The ones with the Ford Tauruses are like, `Eh, OK.”‘

The talk around town, though, is not so much about money as it is housing – more precisely, the lack of it. The town’s 150 houses and roughly 40 apartments are quickly snatched up when one becomes available.

The housing shortage is one reason most teachers at the schools car pool from Las Vegas. The managers of Ken’s do the same. It’s about an hour commute if you treat the speed limit as a suggestion.

Developers, though, aren’t rushing to build homes in Baker, not when there are much bigger profits to be made around Las Vegas or in Southern California.

“If we had housing here, I think people would come to get out of the Vegas rat race,” said resident Kelly Fisher, a local school board member who also is secretary of the Community Services District.

For now, the most contact residents have with outsiders is taking their food orders. And they are fine keeping it that way.

“As long as Las Vegas is open for business,” Fisher said, “Baker will be open.”